Baghdadi message reaffirms IS leadership

The Islamic State's release of an audio message by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi reaffirmed his leadership of the group following a six-month silence and rumours over his health. In his half-hour speech posted on jihadist forums on Thursday, Baghdadi calls for a general mobilisation and urges all Muslims to move to the caliphate he proclaimed last year or wage jihad (holy war) wherever they are. Rumours emerged last month that Baghdadi was seriously wounded in a March air strike and had relinquished the organisation's leadership to a militant called Abu Alaa al-Afari. The recording provides no clues as to Baghdadi's health but largely dispels any notion he is no longer the overall leader of an organisation which now claims branches all over the region, as well as in Asia and Africa.

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Major Adnan Majeed stands in front of a cement wall scrawled with the names of Kurdish fighters killed by ISIS. A mural of the Kurdish flag with a rising sun at its center, blanketed with specks of sand, forms the heart of this makeshift memorial.

The leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, seems to have broken his 11-month silence with a long audio message in which he mocks the United States, calls on jihadis to rally against the Syrian regime and insists that ISIS 'remains' despite its rapid loss of territory.